John Ivison: Harper should rethink ending Afghan mission

Stephen Harper may get an uncomfortable reception from other world leaders at the NATO summit in Lisbon next month, unless he arrives armed with the news that the alliance wants to hear – namely that Canada will commit to supplying 450 military trainers to school Afghan forces in Kabul after our combat mission ends next year.

Diplomatic sources say the Americans and the British in particular have been increasing the pressure on the Prime Minister to fill the shortfall of trainers needed to ease the transition from NATO troops to Afghan forces in 2014.

They are likely to be disappointed, unless the Prime Minister has a major change of heart. When Brig.-General Jonathan Vance, Chief of the Land Staff, was asked at a Senate Defence committee Monday whether Canada would offer training capacity after 2011, he was blunt. “No, sir. Nothing.”

“We can and will do anything the government asks us to do but at the moment we’ve been told to withdraw. Anything else is speculation,” he said in an interview after his committee appearance.

The response from the Prime Minister’s Office to NATO’s request has been as consistent as it has been lacking in detail. “We will respect the parliamentary motion and focus on development and humanitarian aid post-2011,” said Dimitri Soudas, the Prime Minister’s director of communications.

The 2008 parliamentary motion specified that Canada would end its military presence in Kandahar in July 2011. Mr. Harper has since gone even further, telling me in an interview last January: “We will not be undertaking any activities that require any kind of military presence, other than the odd guard guarding an embassy….it will become a strictly civilian mission.”

The response from the man who once promised Canada would not “cut and run” from Afghanistan appeared to leave little wiggle room.

Yet, there are good reasons why the Prime Minister should think again before squandering much of the international goodwill that has been built up by Canada’s considerable efforts in Afghanistan.

For one thing, the post-2011 situation is unlikely to be a wedge issue at the next election. The Liberal Party signaled that it is open to the idea of an extended, non-combat role in Afghanistan, when Bob Rae, the Liberal foreign affairs critic, said his party is committed to exploring all possibilities for a new role after the combat mission ends. We are well and truly through the looking glass, when Bob Rae is the hawk and Stephen Harper the dove.

For another, the NATO request is sensitive to the limitations placed upon the government by the parliamentary resolution. The motion called for an end to the combat mission and redeployment out of Kandahar. NATO is not looking for operational mentor and liaison teams to work with the Afghan army in the field. Rather it is calling for military trainers who would be based in Kabul and operate in comparative safety “inside the wire” of guarded compounds.

Not only are the Liberals onside with an extended training mission, so are a number of Mr. Harper’s caucus members in the Red Chamber. A Senate report, released last June by the Conservative-dominated defence committee, concluded that Canada’s job in Afghanistan is not done and that Canadian troops should stay in some capacity.

“This committee believes and recommends that Canada’s important and highly-valued contribution to the development of the leadership, training and mentoring of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police must continue beyond 2011 and that Parliament should, at its earliest opportunity, give careful consideration to the question of the role of the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan after 2011.”

No-one who testified before the Senate committee suggested that the Canadian Forces entirely leave Afghanistan.

Retired Brig.-Gen. Don Macnamara expressed concern that the removal of Canadian Forces from Afghanistan would damage Canada’s standing in the world. “If we go ahead with this decision, my nightmare is that Canada will forever be known in NATO for ‘the Canadian position on deployment’,” he said.

Terry Glavin of the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee said he was worried about what a withdrawal would say about the sacrifice of the 152 fallen Canadian soldiers and one diplomat who have died since 2002. “We cannot bring those soldiers back to life but we can ensure they did not die in vain,” he said.

Mr. Harper is known to believe that Canada’s role in NATO is often under-appreciated by the Americans and the Europeans, especially by those countries who placed caveats on the deployment of their troops to keep them out of harm’s way.

But this hardly explains why he appears to be so determined to upset our closest allies over an issue where the political, financial and military costs are so marginal.

To date, the government has managed to side-step a debate on Canada’s post-2011 role but it seems Mr. Harper may have to be more forthcoming in Lisbon.

As one Afghan veteran put it: “No-one in the employ of the Government of Canada is even allowed to say ‘2012’ out loud. But I’ve heard that NATO and, more importantly, the U.S. are going to play hard-ball on this.”